Chapter Fifteen

 

I’m torn between flying after Cecille and chasing Vera home. How do I let my baby sister suffer? If a shadow is after her, then she’s depressed enough that suicidal thoughts have entered her mind. I may have taken my own life, but I’m not gonna let Cecille take hers.

As I glide down the school stairs, I think about Vera. She prayed to receive a Guardian. Even though I find her life even sadder than my own, I don’t think she deserves to die. Across the parking lot, Cecille gets into a car. The woman behind the wheel has to be my mom, but I hardly recognize her. Her face is pale, and her head’s wrapped in a colorful scarf. I wonder what weird fashion trend she’s following now.

Going after Cecille is tempting, but she’ll be safe with Mom. Vera, on the other hand, is headed toward an empty home. Wishing my wings were fully grown, I glide down the street to Vera’s house.

On this fall day, cars turn on their headlights as the sun slides its way to the horizon. Vera’s house is dark except for a light in the upstairs bathroom. I’ve been a Guardian long enough that passing right through the front door doesn’t faze me, but the moment I enter, a wall of darkness hits me. I’ve come to expect some times of emptiness when I’ve exhausted myself from using angelbreath, but this total darkness is oppressive with its heat and closeness. I try to move around, but I feel boxed in.

Time escapes me, and I see only snatches of scenes, brief glimpses of life.

A text message on Vera’s phone: “Working late. Have dinner on your own.”

Darkness.

A date circled on a calendar: Friday, November 2.

Darkness.

A kitchen knife pulled from its drawer. Dark blood dripping slowly onto blue bathroom tile.

Darkness.

Bandages pressed onto young skin. A huddled shape sobbing under a pink comforter.

Darkness.

The first time I’m pulled back into the light for any significant amount of time is English class. Vera looks relatively content. Ms. Kitchin leads the class in a Jeopardy-style review game. Based on the questions, the poetry unit test must be on the horizon. Something appears wrong with the classroom scene, and then it finally hits me that Warren isn’t there.

My first concern is he’s not there to answer my questions. I’ve come to depend on him, and I need his guidance.

Then I realize my problems might be much worse than just missing a training session. What if he’s already passed on? Betsy left without saying good-bye to the others. I just happened to be there when she left. What if Warren finished his Guardianship and Ms. Kitchin is no longer a suicide threat?

The only other experienced angel currently at school is Matthew, and I haven’t crossed paths with him since the meeting three nights ago. I assume he’s always in the athletic department, and sports aren’t exactly Vera’s forte. There’s the new angel Elizabeth Wolf, but she’s still a glimmer of light hovering around Jason Arollo.

I decide to take my training into my own hands. Vera has just given a correct answer to Ms. Kitchin’s latest question, and the dim-witted but sweet hunk next to her has given her a high-five. Vera lets him slap her hand, but I notice she winces at his pressure. She squeezes one hand against the upper part of her other arm, and I remember the cuts I saw last night.

I try not to think too hard about the fact that Vera has resorted to cutting as I glide out to the hallway. The coast is clear, so I practice turning some locks. At least I can work on something while I wait for Warren to show up.

Every once in a while, I stop because a kid wanders down the hall, but I manage to turn the dial in both directions and stop at the numbers I want. The only hard part comes when I remember my sister being chased by a death shadow. To keep my mind off it, I focus on happy memories from my own life. Maybe it’s because of the game going on inside the classroom that I think of all the games I played as a kid: Ghost in the Graveyard, Heads Up Seven Up, Silent Ball, and Red Rover. As long as my memories are fun ones, I can spin the lock in either direction.

A cheer erupts from inside Ms. Kitchin’s room. I glide through the wall to see Vera’s team congratulating each other. Mr. Beefy even slaps Vera on the back. Another wince.

“All right, settle down, everyone.”

“Ms. Kitchin,” a boy from the front row calls, “what’s our prize?”

“Hopefully, a good grade on tomorrow’s test.”

“Awww,” moans the boy and a few others join him.

Ms. Kitchin picks up a stack of papers. “Before the bell rings, I want to pass back your poetry writing assignments. There are some really good ones. I hope you submit your work to our school’s literary magazine.” As Ms. Kitchin passes out the assignments, she continues to talk about the school magazine.

I tune her out as soon as Vera gets her poem back. There’s a giant A+ at the top of the page. In neat cursive handwriting, Ms. Kitchin has written, “What a beautifully haunting poem, Vera! Please submit this to the magazine.”

Vera pulls the page close. With her left arm, she seems to be shielding it from anyone else’s view. She stares at Ms. Kitchin’s words, her eyes scanning them repeatedly, then she quickly folds the page and stuffs it into the pocket of her binder.

The bells rings, and Vera dashes out of her seat.

“Vera,” Ms. Kitchin calls, but Vera books it down the hall faster than I’ve ever seen her move. The binder is tossed into her locker along with books from her morning classes. Then she takes out one new book, geometry, and closes her locker. She hesitates, reopens the door and pulls out the binder before slamming the locker shut and twirling the lock.

I can’t quite figure out what the look on her face means. She appears confused one moment, like she’s looking for an answer, and then angry the next.

As Mr. Gallagher walks the class through proof after proof, I try to figure out what my next move should be. I need to help Vera see the good in life. She needs to feel that the good in her life outweighs the bad. This A+ is the first good thing I’ve seen in her life, but she seems upset by it. I can’t figure it out. Who would be upset about getting an A?

In the middle of class, Vera opens her binder and pulls her poem out of the pocket. Behind her pile of books, she sneaks another peek at Ms. Kitchin’s comment. She doesn’t seem angry anymore, just a bit confused. She bites her lip, then stuffs the poem back in the pocket.

Maybe Ms. Kitchin’s suggestion frightens her. I remember the first time I auditioned for a play. It was freshman year, the play was The Music Man, and I never expected to get more than a tiny part, probably just a townsperson—if I was lucky, maybe one of the pick-a-little ladies. When the callback list was posted and I was asked to read for Zaneeta Shinn, the mayor’s daughter, I almost couldn’t go through with it. I was convinced there had to be some sort of mistake. Maybe that’s how Vera feels. Maybe she thinks Ms. Kitchin pities her and wrote the compliment to boost her self-esteem.

By the time geometry class ends, I have a plan. I’m going to convince Vera to submit her poem to the literary magazine. Unfortunately, I haven’t a clue how to do it.

Lunch is the usual disaster. Vera sits alone at the end of the loser table while the bulimic girl wolfs down something that looks like a cross between tacos and a burnt thin crust pizza. The techy kids pay more attention to their gadgets than their food. I roam the cafeteria trying to figure out where other writer geeks might hang out. From my days at the school, I seem to remember that they were usually a mix of kids who did things like newspaper and yearbook. A few of them even crossed over into my beloved drama club since we were always looking for people to write skits. My greatest wish would be to get Vera on the staff of the literary magazine. Then maybe she’d make some friends, too.

One step at a time, I tell myself. Let’s get her poem published. Maybe then she’ll gain enough confidence to join the staff.

At one table, I find a redheaded girl who is dividing up a stack of neon-green flyers. I hear her say the name of the literary magazine, and I glide a little closer.

“If each of us hangs up five of these in every wing, we should have the place covered,” the redhead tells her friends.

“I’ll take the math hall,” says one of the guys.

“I’ve got foreign language.”

“History,” claims another.

I peek over their shoulders. As I expected, the flyers are for the literary magazine. I need to get one of those under Vera’s nose. I wish I still had my body. If I were still alive, I could easily talk these kids into giving me one of their flyers, or at least sneak one off their table.

When lunch ends, I follow Vera to her next class and try to think of other ways to get her involved in school. Maybe she could join the newspaper too.

During biology, I leave Vera while she’s working on dissecting a starfish. The hallways are mostly empty, but I’m not interested in people. I look instead for the neon-green flyers for the literary magazine. The staff has done a good job plastering the hallways with them. I head toward the hall where Vera has her locker. There’s a neon green flyer taped to the wall fifteen feet away.

After waiting for a teacher to carry a coffee mug into his empty classroom, I think about the fun I had in drama club and rip the flyer from the wall. As I try to carry the flyer down the empty hallway, my thoughts sidetrack twice and the flyer slips from my grasp, fluttering to the floor. But each time, I think of a particular performance I enjoyed or the applause I heard and I pick the flyer back up and carry it farther down the hallway. You would think the stickiness of the tape would help the flyer stick to me, but apparently tape doesn’t mean anything to an angel’s body. With some concentration, I manage to get the neon green flyer pinned on Vera’s locker. She can’t miss it now.

On the way back to Vera’s biology class, a flash of light zooms past me and into Ms. Kitchin’s room. It can only be Warren. I rush to the English classroom in time to see the ball of light morph into a familiar Guardian standing inside Ms. Kitchin’s classroom.

“Warren?”

He turns and looks at me.

“Nanette. Sorry, I must have missed you there.”

“You missed Vera’s entire English class. Have you been gone all day?”

Warren runs his hands through his wavy hair. “I’ve been doing some research.”

“On what?”

“Hard to explain. Just trying to figure out what’s made Ms. Kitchin feel like life’s not worth living anymore.”

“Did you find anything?” I peek past him into the classroom. Ms. Kitchin has a period of upperclassmen working in groups.

Warren looks over his shoulder at them. “Maybe.”

“Like what?”

Warren turns back to me but ignores my question. “Where’s Vera?”

“Biology.”

“You should be with her.”

“You left Ms. Kitchin alone for hours.”

“I had my reasons.” His answer is curt.

“Fine.” I back up into the hallway. “I’ll see you tomorrow ...maybe.”

Warren doesn’t respond. He simply glides to his Charge.

I sigh and return to mine.

At the end of the day, Vera heads back to her locker. She takes one glance at the literary magazine’s flyer, pulls it right off and slaps it on another locker a few feet to her right.

I’m furious. She has no idea how hard I had to concentrate to carry that flyer down here and stick it on her locker. I have half a mind to yank it down right in front of her. As Vera begins to twirl the dial on her lock, I decide, Why not? She’ll probably think the tape wore off. I glide over to the flyer, think about that crazy skit we did in drama club about the presidential election, and tug down on the flyer. It floats beautifully down to the speckled linoleum floor.

Vera ignores it. I want to kick it right to her, but I’m distracted by Cecille, who’s pulled up to her own locker. I examine her face for signs of more crying. Her eyes don’t look puffy or red, and I don’t see any shadows nearby, so I hope whatever upset her yesterday was temporary.

Vera is almost all packed up when a familiar face passes by. Gregory Hicks from the drama club is now standing next to my sister. With that scraggly little beard, he looks so much older than when I knew him as a gangly freshman. His body’s filled out more now—his shoulders broader, his muscles more defined.

“Hey, little Dunston,” he says. Little Dunston? He’s calling her by her last name, by our last name. I guess that makes me Big Dunston. It hits me that I haven’t been entirely forgotten.

Cecille looks up at him from under her pale lashes. “Hey.” Her eyes return to her locker.

“You coming to drama club after school?”

Cecille nods without looking at him.

“Good. Cardone wants you to pick out a piece for the oral interp comp. Says he’s got some good poems and monologues for you if you don’t have your own.”

“Right. Sure. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Her head is practically buried in her locker as she rearranges her books.

Gregory slaps my sister on the shoulder. “Great. See ya then.” He backs up right into Vera as she slams her locker shut. “Whoa, sorry there. Didn’t see ya.” Gregory moves on down the hall.

“Nobody ever does,” Vera mutters. She looks like she wants to sink right into herself and disappear.

My sister pulls her head out of her locker and turns to look at Vera.

“Say something to her,” I beg. “Make friends with her, Cecille. She needs one. You probably could use more, too.”

Vera continues down the hall, and my sister kneels down to mess with the books at the bottom of her locker, but after a moment, she just stares at them for a bit. I kneel down next to her, fully aware that I should be following Vera.

“Cecille,” I say the words out loud even though I know she can’t hear me. “What’s wrong, baby sister? I know what I let you see was so, so wrong, but that was two years ago now and you were always the strong one. What’s made you so sad?”

She’s so still I have the crazy idea that maybe she can hear me. Then she reaches for one last book, tosses it into her bag, and stands up. I follow her as far as the theater door. When she opens it, I see the drama geeks inside. My heart aches. I want to be there with them. I want to memorize lines again. I want opening night jitters. I want the give and take of a good onstage dialogue when the chemistry between you and the other actor clicks and you’re transported to this other world where you get to be somebody else for a while.

The auditorium door closes behind Cecille, but I can still hear the buzzing chatter of the kids. Their energy is infectious. And yet heartbreaking for me at the same time.

The moment I hear Mr. Cardone’s voice telling them it’s time to start the meeting, I bolt. I can’t take anymore. It’s too much for me to hear what I’ve left behind by taking my own life.

 

A memory rushes forth. I’m on the stage, wearing a white dress, and my hair’s tied back in a little blue ribbon. A graveyard of dead people sits in chairs stage right. Stage left has the barest essentials of a kitchen.

It’s my junior year, and I’m playing Emily Webb in Our Town. We’re nearing the end, and I’m worked up to a fever pitch. My character has died, but has asked the stage manager if she can return to relive just one small moment in her life. The memory of her birthday proves too much for her to handle. I turn to the senior girl playing my mama. The words run through my head like it was yesterday.

“Oh, Mama,” I say, “look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama! Wally's dead, too. His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!”

As Emily Webb, I take in my surroundings at the old Webb home. “I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye, Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners...Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking...and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths...and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

I turn to the stage manager. Usually the part is played by a man, but Mr. Cardone has cast a girl. “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?”

“No,” she says. “The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.”

 

The stage manager’s words echo in my soul: “the saints and poets, maybe—they do some.” I’m not a saint, and I’m not a poet, and I never realized what I was throwing away.

I’m at Vera’s house before I know it. She turns the key in her front door, and a shadow follows her.

“No!” I scream as I chase after them. I shove myself between Vera and the shadow. “No! You don’t get to have her. You don’t get to have any of them!”

Vera tosses her bag down on a couch and heads for the kitchen.

“Stay away from her,” my voice is venomous. The shadow floats in front of me. “I’m Guarding her. She’s mine, not yours.”

Above the howl of the shadow’s stormy winds, I barely hear Vera’s phone buzz. She heads back to the living room to pull the phone out of her bag. I stay in the kitchen. Two knives gleam on the magnetic strip above the sink. “Saints and poets,” I mutter to myself as I pull the knives off the strip and shove them into the open dishwasher with other dirty dishes. I’m contemplating emptying any knives from the silverware drawer when Vera walks back in, the shadow right behind her. The face has formed by now. It’s Tamesis again.

Vera hits a few keys and then shoves her phone in her pocket. She looks at the magnetic knife strip and frowns. She opens the fridge, stares at the contents, and then closes the door with a sigh.

Vera stops at a calendar tacked onto the wall. She flips from October to November and points to Friday, the second. It’s the same day I saw circled on a calendar last night.

“Soon,” she mutters before sliding her finger off the calendar and letting the page fall back to October. She trudges upstairs. Tamesis and I follow.

Vera heads into her dad’s room. Opening a drawer, she pulls out a tiny razor blade.

“Vera.” My voice is barely audible even to me. “No, Vera. Not the cutting again.” I put myself right in front of her.

Tamesis’s inky darkness spreads out and fills the room. “She is mine,” moans the shadow.

“Leave her!” I scream. Tamesis only grows larger. Her head towers a foot above me, and a dark pair of wings spread out the width of the small bedroom. The look of pleasure on her grotesque face is nauseating.

I turn back to Vera. “Don’t do this, Vera. We’ll find a reason for you to live. I didn’t see the beauty in the world until it was too late, but you still can.” The darkness spreads and gets thicker, like a fog rolling in. “There’s beauty in the simple things, Vera. What about your poetry? Think of your poetry. Think about what Ms. Kitchin wrote on your paper today.” Vera holds up the razor blade. I can barely see her through the darkness now. “Vera. Stop!”

Darkness falls, and I see nothing.